A photo of Bernard Icart, a Cornwall man sought by cops as a "person of interest" in his wife's murder in a Queens apartment Saturday, State Police said. Photo Credit: News 12

A Cornwall man sought by cops as a "person of interest" in his wife's murder was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Queens apartment Saturday, State Police said.

Cops were looking to speak to Bernard Icart after finding his wife, 44-year-old Sabine Icart, dying of a gunshot wound in her Cornwall home on Friday morning. Sabine Icart died shortly after paramedics got her to St. Luke's Hospital in Newburgh, and the police search widened, with cops out in force in Orange County on Friday.

Tips in that widening search led investigators to New York City, investigator Neil Moscato said. Police received a tip from a person who said they saw Bernard Icart, 46, in a black Hyundai driving in Queens, Moscato said, and detectives learned Icart was renting an apartment there since he'd become estranged from his wife.

When they went to look for Bernard Icart, they found his body in the apartment, dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Moscato said. Detectives from the 106th Precinct were collecting evidence from the Ozone Park apartment Saturday. An NYPD spokesman confirmed detectives were investigating an apparent suicide at the apartment, at 130-04 130th St. in Queens.

Icart was seen as the key to the investigation after witnesses told detectives they'd spotted him in Cornwall on the morning of the murder, police said. The couple also had a history of domestic violence.

"He was our person of interest, if you want to call him a suspect, yes, we were looking at him very, very hard and we wanted to talk to him," Moscato said.

Detectives aren't yet sure if the gun Icart used to kill himself was the same gun used in his wife's murder. The weapon was taken into evidence and investigators will seek to match the ballistics to those from the Cornwall murder. There were also indications that Icart tried to get out of the country and may have tried to buy an airline ticket, cops said.

An autopsy on Sabine Icart was conducted Saturday by the Orange County medical examiner. The autopsy didn't yield much in terms of clues, at least according to what police have said publicly, but did confirm Sabine Icart died from a gunshot wound. Moscato declined to say where Sabine Icart was shot.

Bernard Icart's death will prevent detectives from knowing some of the details of what happened in Cornwall on Friday, but it doesn't mean the end of the investigation, Moscato said. Investigators will seek to rule out the possibility that another person could have been responsible for Sabine Icart's murder

A few hours after finding Bernard Icart's body, police said all indications point to a murder-suicide after a volatile marriage that ended in a split.

"We thought we were building up a pretty good case to have this guy prosecuted for murder, and he ended up taking his own life," Moscato said.